Spit-fires and grumpy agents
by Thatspazzy Artist
Summary: Please don't ever owe a favor to Kisuke, he'll just make you go somewhere you're not used to and make sure you chase things that hide in the dark. One-shot idea.


The bustle from the city of lights-and-sounds always made him gag with disgust. The moonless night even gave him some shivers, so used to the crescent moon from the sky of the barren desert. The city life never stopped, it was a constant swarm of movement, but at least in the suburbs where the amount of people who were out this late were few and far between…besides himself and his cohorts.

The man turned to look at his partner, a toothy grin covering her face, as she swung down to middle of the street in front of him. The small ape-like Hollow's normally infectious mood had no effect on him tonight and she merely bounced in place as she waited the older man's instructions.

"Well, well. Mister Minseram, what're we doin' here now? Ya gonna tell me now, right?" she chattered happily, her teeth clacking against each other to echo in the night.

He chuckled at her before patting her head. "Patience, Gidae. We still need to wait for the others to get her before it would be time, you know that right?" He scratched her chin to keep her distracted.

Gidae hummed for a bit and soon she stood up straighter. "Oh, is that them over there?" she crooned at Minseram while pointing with her tail. Minseram turned to look at another pair of shapes seemed to materialize from the shadows. He gave her a nod and Gidae bounded over to the others.

Minseram stared at how Gidae interacted with the other Hollow, a shark-like grin on the jackal. He gave a nod to the other Arrancar, the feathers on her outfit swishing with every step she took. She stood daintily before Minseram and gave him a stiff but courteous nod while she held out her hand, "Minseram."

"Averid." he gave her an equal but cool greeting before calling over Gidae. She bounced over before settling herself down by Minseram's feet.

"It's time now right, cause they're here right?" she whispered excitedly. When Minseram gave her a nod, she howled with delight and the Jackal joined in.

" _Maybe the cities are not so bad after all,"_ he thought to himself as he took Averid's hand to intertwine her fingers with his. The pair began to walk down the street after their Hollows. _"it did get me closer to Averid."_

o0o0o

The elevator door ' _dinged_!' as it opened, letting Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo through. He strutted toward his desk and his two teammates, a smug look on his face as he slid into his chair flawlessly. Unfortunately for our Special Agent, his teammates didn't even notice this. The woman across from him, Ziva David, only scribbled something onto her notepad as she drank her coffee. Tony's other teammate, Timothy McGee, didn't even look up from his computer screen as he typed out a report. After staring at his companions for a few seconds, he cleared his throat. No visible response. He tried again, a bit louder this time. Still, there was no reaction from them.

"Okay, what is the matter Tony?" asked a frustrated Ziva as Tony sounded like he nearly coughed up a lung when he tried to get his teammates' attention again. She regretted asking that when she saw his leery-ish grin.

"Oh, does something have to be wrong for me to want to tell you and Probie about something?" Tony began, as he leaned back in his chair.

"Let me guess, Tony," McGee interrupted "you got a hot date tonight that you're going to rub in our faces?" McGee finally looked away from his computer to stare at Tony who just grinned at him.

"Why, you jealous?" he said with a smirk.

Ziva just rolled her eyes at her teammates when they began to trade lewd comments and insults at each other. She focused on her work when the two began to argue louder. When it looked like the two might actually start throwing things, their boss strode into their bullpen, coffee in hand.

"Don't make me separate you two, DiNozzo." stated Gibbs as he settled into his chair. He answered his phone call with his customary greeting of "Yeah, Gibbs…" His face got a stern look to it as he listened to the details.

"Aww, come on Boss. You wouldn't do that. What would McGee do with me gone?" started DiNozzo. McGee was about to respond but stopped when Gibbs slammed the phone back onto its receiver.

"Gear up. We need to beat the news to this one." Gibbs ordered as he got his gun ready. "Ziva, you're driving." he said as he threw the keys to her. Ziva caught them effortlessly and grinned at her two wary teammates.

"I hope you two did not have a big brokefeast," she said to them as they all entered the elevator. Tony rolled his eyes as he turned toward her.

"It's 'break-fast' Zee-Va, 'break-fast'" Tony corrected her as the doors closed.

o0o0o

 ** _20 min before the team arrives_**

The scene was a bloody mess with the customary yellow tape that meant you shouldn't cross but that didn't stop the woman standing in the middle of the field.

Her black hair tickled her neck as she stepped around most of the bloody remains, and as she almost tripped over a branch the strange pink bag on her shoulder said, "You know, I don't know why you don't just tie your hair back. I'm sure that you could avoid most of this…ick and save us from a future face plant."

The woman sighed at the bag before lifting it up to her face. "You know, I don't know why I hadn't thought of that. You're right, Kurodo. Let me just pull up my invisible hair tie and keep my hair away from my face. That is just the most wonderful idea in the world, thank you for giving me such good advice-" she said with as much fake enthusiastic sarcasm as she could add.

"Alright, alright. I was just saying," mumbled 'Kurodo' as the woman made him hang back down by her side. "No need to be so sarcastic." A loud **'Squelch!'** stopped the woman's path toward the edge of the clearing.

With a grimace she lifted her foot and said to the black cat on her other shoulder, "It's official; I will _NEVER_ owe Kisuke another favor…and I hate what these Hollows are doing to my shoes."

The cat merely yawned at her. While the woman was busy trying to shake off the gunk from her shoes, a rustle of an overhead tree branch made her look up. The branch had two people on it: a young, blond girl with a pink dress and a man dressed so that only his eyes and a bit of his red hair were noticeable just stared at her, not saying a word. The girl gave the woman a grimace as she looked down.

"Eww, Maia. Why did you step in that?" the girl asked in her child-like voice as she tossed her a small hair tie before pinching her nose.

The woman rolled her eyes at the child as she did an inhuman leap into the tree to land on a branch above her two other guests. Maia tied back her hair as she handed Kurodo to the girl. As the black cat jumped onto the man's shoulders, she answered the little girl.

"It's something I've always wanted to do, Ririn. That's why," she snapped back to her. Turning so that she was fully facing the masked man Maia asked, "So what did you guys find Noba?"

Noba stayed quiet as he petted the cat. The cat began to purr slightly before he spoke. Noba was a man of few words, at most a few sentences, and today was no exception. "We can't find where they went. The trail is there but it doubled back a few time before it disappears," he answered quietly.

Maia nodded. It seemed to be like that ever since Kisuke pointed the group to the hollows back near the swamps of Lousana. The hollows would use their respective skills in order to lure their prey toward them. They would collect as many as they could before going into a feeding-frenzy like state and just start tearing them apart.

So far, these Hollows have killed nearly forty people and it was pissing Maia off. Sighing as she put her head in her hands, Maia sat on the branch leaning her back against the tree. Her teammates stared at her, various amounts of emotions crossing their faces.

"Why don't we get back to the hotel to rest up before we try again?" The three humans and the pink bag turned as one to stare at the cat before looking back at Maia. She nodded her head.

"Yoruichi's right. We should get some shut eye before we fall over from exhaustion. Noba, take them to the room first so that Kurodo can get into his body. Come back for me in a bit." she ordered.

Noba nodded and took Ririn's hand. "Ten minutes" he said to her before a red vortex swallowed them up and Maia was left by herself on the branch. She stared at the shifting tree leaves, wondering how they would catch these 'untraceable' hollows.

' _There has to_ be _a way. Come on, Maia think! Everyone makes mistakes, these Hollows will_ NOT _make a fool out of you'_ she thought desperately. Ideas rolled in her head, some plausible while others were downright ridiculous.

She reached for her zanpakuto, hoping to feel some comfort, only to remember she left him in the hotel room the five of them were staying at. Keeping a low profile meant that she would not be carrying her zanpakuto around all the time unless she wanted the police to charge her with carrying a dangerous weapon and shove her into a jail.

With a frustrated groan, Maia stood up to make her way out of the tree when the branch creaked. Maia froze, but that didn't stop the branch from snapping underneath her. With a grace that would shame any gymnast, she flipped away from the tree to land back in the field. Maia stood ramrod straight as she listened for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing seemed to be wrong, but then she leaped to her left.

With a loud **'CRASH!'** the spot where Maia was standing moments before seemed to get hit with an invisible force. A loud snarl signaled to her that her attacker was not happy about missing her and went to try again. Maia jumped again, this time to her right, and nearly got hit by the monster. She felt the air near her left cheek whistle as she landed once again on terra firma. The invisible monster had crashed into a tree, making an impressive dent into its bark.

"You know, I just wanted to crash in my bed but then I wouldn't have gotten any sleep." she taunted as the hollow shuffled and snorted at her, "now that you're here though I guess I can play for a bit. Although being invisible won't keep me from kicking your ass ya know." Maia stood still, seeing if her attacker would try to hit her again.

The hollow chuckled as his prey raised its fists. His stomach was rumbling for flesh and his inner voices kept saying ' **kill human** , _eat soul_ , _**kill it**_ ". With a snarl, the creature shifted his colors so that the human would run screaming in terror and that always made the chase more exciting for him. But to his surprise, the human only stared at him before saying, "I found~you" in a sing-song tone.

Suddenly, the human blurred out of sight and before the hollow's eyes could find its prey he felt an enormous force slam into his back. With a startled screech, the hollow flew away from the force of the hit before being stopped by the human…grabbing on to its tail!

With a loud roar, Maia pulled hard on the hollow's tail before flipping him over her shoulder to hit the ground hard. Something wet splattered onto her clothes but she didn't pay attention to it. She smacked the hollow back and forth on the ground like this until his tail snapped off.

Maia grunted as she fell back with it and the Hollow crashed against a tree so hard that it split, the top half crashing onto him. The hollow groaned before righting itself, shaking the branches off. He then scampered away through a Garganta when Maia managed to right herself. She stared at the retreating Hollow until the Garganta closed. Sighing, Maia pinched her nose before looking back at the field and groaning.

The field had the Hollow's large prints all over it, not to mention the trees that were splintered from the lizard-like Hollow's body. How was she supposed to explain this to anyone that stumbled across the scene?

"… _I'm not even going to bother trying to explain this mess to the police. I'm pretty sure they would blame me. I'm just going to wait for Noba to get here and then I'll deal with this after I get a good ten hours of sleep_." Maia thought with a deadpan expression on her face as she walked away while brushing out the odd twigs that mysteriously tangled into her hair. _"Seriously nature?"_

o0o0o

As the NCIS team entered the parking lot barricaded by the police, Tony managed to get out of the car before his stomach would spew all over the backseat. Groaning, his stomach gave a few hesitant flips before settling down. As he stood up, Tony gave the smiling Ziva a withering glare that just made her smile. Gibbs had already gone ahead to talk to the nearest police officers.

"NCIS, where's the crime scene? " Gibbs asked the two nearest police officers. They were a bit surprised at Gibbs' forwardness, but the blond officer recovered first.

"Ah, you the Navy people right? Well, I dunno why you guys are here but you can talk to the guy who found the bodies. Yeah, he's over on that hill with my boss, Jones." The blond man pointed toward another pair, standing near another police cruiser. With a nod, Gibbs interrupted the man as he began to bark orders. "Ziva…"

"Get the witness' statement and wait for Ducky to get here, on it Gibbs" Ziva answered as she began to walk over.

"McGee, DiNozzo…"

"Process the crime scene, got it Boss." nodded McGee as Tony walked back to the car to get their equipment. "So, what are you going to do?" Gibbs just gave McGee a look as he walked along side Ziva. "I'm going to find out where I can-."

The four agents and two policemen were startled when they felt rumbling, followed by what sounded like falling trees?

"What the-!" "The crime scene!" shouted both officers simultaneously, with the blond one pointing into the forest. While the four agents dropped what they were doing and sprang into action, the pair of baffled officers stood gawking after the agents. When the pair were sure that they weren't coming back anytime soon, their bewilderment changed to a mask of annoyance.

" _ **Damn reptile. I told him to kill, not play with his food!"**_ the blond officer hissed in a guttural voice, slamming his fist into the face of the other 'officer'. The second officer melted around the fist before it was absorbed by the blond. With another growl, the blond opened up a Garganta that swallowed up the car he was leaning on before he stomped into it.

* * *

*quietly places story here before going back into hiding*


End file.
